Other views: Entitlements threaten Obama's big vision

President Obama is thinking big thoughts. Climate change, gun control, immigration reform, energy independence and investing in a "rising, thriving middle class" were among the issues he touched on during Tuesday night's State of the Union Address.

Never mind that many of his big thoughts will face long odds in a divided and small-minded Congress. Stung by Republicans' refusal to meet him halfway on most issues, but also emboldened by his re-election, Obama is playing a long game. His goal is to sell a vision of what he stands for, and how he would like to govern, rather than of what he expects to enact in the near term.

In many ways, his list is appealing and audacious. Climate change is arguably the biggest long-term threat the world faces, yet has been so politically toxic that Obama barely mentioned it until his inaugural last month. Gun violence is a blight on America. Immigration reform is a mainstream idea, championed equally by Obama and former president George W. Bush, that was hijacked by hard-liners.

But if those problems are to be solved, the most important element of his speech might have been a challenge to his fellow Democrats: "Those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms - otherwise, our retirement programs will crowd out the investments we need for our children and jeopardize the promise of a secure retirement for future generations."

Obama has hardly been a champion of either deficit reduction or entitlement reforms. And his party has increasingly begun to dig in its heels on these matters. So for him to embrace the cause of reforming Medicare - even timidly through means-testing and having the government pay for health care results, not costs incurred - is encouraging, if insufficient.

Reforms to entitlements should be part of any discussion of public policy. But they particularly need to be part of the discussion in liberal circles. These programs were created largely by Democrats, something they can take pride in. But as they get bigger and costlier, they are suffocating the progressive agenda.

This is most apparent in financial terms. The Office of Management and Budget projects that entitlements will cost a staggering $10 trillion over the next five years and will account for more than 60 cents of every dollar government spends. As these programs grow faster than tax receipts, their capacity to crowd out investments will only grow.

But the smothering impact of entitlements also has a philosophical dimension. An ideology that purports to be about initiating positive change has become - through its absolutist defense of entitlements - a defender of the status quo. What's more, that status quo is hardly one that would live up to the egalitarian ideals espoused by progressives. Medicare, for instance, borrows heavily from today's young and middle-age workers, many of whom struggle to make ends meet and lack health insurance, to subsidize health care for seniors, many of whom could afford to pay considerably more.

Obama is the right person to bring this message to liberals, who've begun acting as if deficits are under control. Restraining the runaway spending on entitlements is not only important to fiscal conservatives, economists and bond holders. It is essential if the USA is to claim the future that the president described Tuesday night.

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Other views: Entitlements threaten Obama's big vision

President Obama is thinking big thoughts. Climate change, gun control, immigration reform, energy independence and investing in a 'rising, thriving middle class' were among the issues he touched on

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